I expect not either, but you never know. Could contribute to low overhead, make it easier to start up something like that where it doesn’t exist already. I’m just saying I see potential is all.

Yeah, but I’ve seen efforts around Milwaukee for instance where locals start kind of small pop up grocery stores and I feel like in the right hands something like this could contribute to keeping that kind of thing going.

I’m not sure anyone would listen. And if they did they might easily get the wrong idea. I was just reading a good article the other day about how the fascination that professionals like me have with the Middle Ages has contributed to white supremacist misreadings of the past in spite of our best intentions. It’s true.

Right, and that’s my hangup. They’ve come up with something (okay, lets be straight, they’ve invented the vending machine) that could have real applications and instead they’ve decided they’ll use and market it as a way of driving mom and pop’s out of business?

The more I think about this today the more I think it might have some application in the food deserts that you tend to find in urban and very remote areas. I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would market it this way though.

Specifically it was Edward the Black Prince’s personal motto. “God and duty.”

Well, they mostly turned out useful to him. Bastards had every incentive to support the family without expecting to succeed to the throne. When Henry’s only legitimate son William died in a shipwreck, his daughter Matilda was named his heir, but a bunch of lords reneged on their pledges to her when Stephen of Blois…

We’ve just never found a smoking gun until now.

Right. Henry II called himself Henry FitzEmpress to remind everyone that his mother had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor at one point in her life, and there’s a whole load of FitzHenry’s and FitzRoy’s (son of the king) from a generation earlier because Henry I had a huge pile of bastards. Like twenty five or…

It’s not every day I get to flex this much on Kinja so I’m enjoying the hell out of myself. And for the record, I believe that the French espee (sword, modern “epee”) and the German speer have a similar root having to do with thrusting.

Well, there’s never been (before now, maybe) any firm confirmation that there were female warriors. We’ve just known that women were along for the ride, and that some died by the sort of violence that might indicate battle. So it’s long been theorized that some women were warriors, but that’s all it was: theory.

Robert was William’s father by a merchant’s daughter. From all accounts William quite liked the name “the Bastard.” If I’m not mistaken Richard the Fearless was a bastard as well, and that was William’s great-grandfather. The tradition of concubinage amongst the vikings carried over to the Normans so it wasn’t unusual…

Well, in fairness to Alfred, I think the first time he was called “the Great” was like the sixteenth century. But the point is well taken. Those epithets were kind of a viking thing, which is why you tend to see it with them and with Norman dukes: Rollo Longstrider, William Longsword, Richard I the Fearless, Richard…

Yeah. Between fatigue and tactical mis-steps by Harold Godwinson William was almost guaranteed to win. The English, for instance, preferred to fight on foot in a shield wall, wheras the Normans (who had been vikings themselves only a handful of generations back) had adapted to French ways and stayed on their horses.…

Yeah, there’s a good deal of lore surrounding women fighters from Roman sources about the Germanic peoples etc. But even from relatively contemporary stuff to this, and not even vikings. Aethelfled was the daughter of King Alfred the Great. She personally led the Mercians in battle against the Danes, built…

All correct. A lot of historians have put forward the theory that King Harold’s death march to face Harald Hardrade in the north of England tapped out his army and basically ensured William the Bastard’s victory at Hastings

Theorized. We have plenty of indications of Norse women who died violently but there have been events particularly in English history like the St. Brice’s Day Massacre where King Aerhelred Unraed ordered a massacre of Danes in England that could have accounted for that, so it’s always remained theoretical and up for…

Historian working with Anglo Saxon England and a hobby for sagas

Probably because There have been strong indications for a long time that Norse women could be fighters in the right circumstances

Just want to chime in as someone who studies this: we already knew that women went along on raids. From archaeological evidence we’ve known for a long time that in England for instance the Norse fully intended to set up a society rather than simply raid and go home because there are roughly equal amounts of male and…